AGING GRACEFULLY JUST NOT IN THE CARDS

You wake up one morning and something is missing, and it takes you a while to figure out what's gone.  You still have demands, obligations, duties to perform, but for some reason they just don't seem all that important anymore.  You don't really look forward to anything; you're just passing time. Yeah, time, the thing you're running out of.  That alone should put anyone into panic mode - the thought that before long you'll be gone.  The big problem isn't that the end is just around the corner; it's a matter of what to do with what time you have left . . . or think you have left . . . and there's no way of knowing when or how it ends for you.  It almost seems like a waste of time to do anything at all, and that's what old age is all about - dealing with short time.

But regardless of how short time might be, it's still here, and you've still got things to do, or should do.  My closest friend died about 15 years ago, and shortly thereafter his wife said, "I'm so disappointed for him because he had such big plans.  He wanted to write more, go places, be involved in things, and all that got cut short."  My response to her was a simple question:  "Would you have wanted him to die doing nothing, just sitting and waiting on an end to it all?"  Those words come back to haunt me now.  I was with him just hours before he passed, knew he was in desperate shape, and I let him send me away.  I had been pleading with him to return to the hospital, see if they couldn't do something for him . . . but he was resolute about not going back.  I know now that he didn't want help, that he'd had all he wanted and was ready for the end.

I'm now a good dozen years older than he was when his life ended, just short of being the same age my father was when he died.  Neither of those men waited it out, didn't stop doing things because they're bodies were shutting down.  They knew time was short, but they kept going, kept making plans and looking forward to something.  I've stopped writing, have book projects going but can't find the inspiration or determination to finish them, and I don't work on much of anything else anymore.  I have chores to attend to because I'm a caretaker for quite a few small animals, dogs and cats mostly.  I've got those daily chores to run, bills to pay, upkeep of property to see about, and so I'm not idle.  But I know what's missing, and I have no idea how to get it back.  I'm not excited about anything, don't have any real plans for the future.  And I'm not afraid, not really worried either.  As of just last week, when I had my normal six months check-up, the doctor said everything was fine, that my tests were the best he'd seen in me since I'd been his patient.  I'm in decent physical shape, but somehow that hasn't translated into anything productive.  I am not aging gracefully, at least not when it comes to actually doing anything worthwhile.

I went to the refrigerator the other day and looked inside at all the jars and packages of things that were 90 percent used up but still there.  Why had I not finished off that jar of mayo?  A couple of sandwiches, and it would've been gone, just another jar I could toss into the trash.  Then it hit me.  Why bother?  It's just a few tablespoons of mayo, so why not just throw it away and clear out some
space in the refrigerator?  Because it's a bother, that's why.  You have to dig deep into the jar to get out what's left . . . and old age is the same.  I'm down to having to work harder to get what little is left out of life, and I'm letting that shut me down.  You can't save it, that's for sure . . . so why not just go ahead a use it up?

Maybe it's just a gesture, but I'm going to have a sandwich, and it's not even lunch time.  I might be wrong, but I figure the last few slices of ham or those few last bites of mayo will taste just fine . . . and then, they will be gone.  And that's the way it should be.

NOBODY EVER TOLD ME LIFE WOULD BE EASY

Nobody ever told me that life would be easy, but I got lots of warning that it would be hard.  Time and again I was told to prepare myself for a life that would test me, and most of that preparation was taken care of by my parents.  They did a good job of making sure I was properly educated so I could make a living.  They pushed me to be a responsible person who met challenges when they came along, and they did their best to prepare me for that too.  None of us get a free ride, I was told time and again.  Nothing is free.  We all face hardships, and when those things come along, we buckle down and do our best to work through them.  I was taught to trust God, to turn to him when I was hard up against it, but I was also taught that God had already set me up with a good mind and body so I could handle my own affairs.  Nobody ever told me life would be easy . . . but my expectations for a good life were high.  I didn't expect an easy life, but I did expect a good one, and I've always felt like living a good life was mostly up to me.

Now that my life is mostly behind me, I still have high expectations.  Looking back, life hasn't been easy by a long shot, but it has been worthwhile.  Has it been a good life?  I don't really know how to gauge exactly how good it has been, but it's been fairly productive and at times enjoyable.  But it has always been an uphill struggle for me, seldom ever easy, and marked with lots of disappointments.  "If you don't expect a lot, accept that you'll often come up short of expectations, you'll have less disappointment in life," my mother once told me.  And by saying that, she wasn't trying to say that I should expect less of life.  Just be prepared for disappointments, especially when you strive for a lot.

I've failed at a lot of things, came up short of expectations with most things I've tried to do, but I usually got somewhere.  In other words, there have been some successes in those failures.  I didn't get to the top, but I got part of the way there.  I didn't get exactly what I wanted, but I got some of it . . . and having a good life might well come from being satisfied with those partial successes.  I wasn't a wonderful father or husband, but I tried to be, and I got the job done well enough most of the time.  I wasn't a wonderful college professor either, but I was a good one.  I made lots of mistakes as a coach, but I had some success there too.  But some of the greatest happiness I've know in life has come from unexpected sources . . . from being successful at some things I never expected to be good at.

I'm a man with lots of formal education, and it served me well.  I have no real training at most things relating to craftsmanship, but I somehow acquired the ability to build things.  I learned to do woodwork early on and eventually became a decent enough guitar builder.  I learned to draw and paint some, and I became a fairly decent musician.  I learned to write, and that lead to becoming a novelist, songwriter, and a poet.  I've learned to do a lot of things that have made life a lot more enjoyable than just being what I was trained and prepared for.  And none of those things have been easy, and looking back at it now, I wouldn't have wanted them to be.  It's the hard things in life that have me a stronger person.  It's the disappointments that have pushed me to do better.  It's the pain and suffering I've endured from time to time that turned me in a direction I needed to go.

. . . nobody ever told me that life would be easy, and I'm glad they didn't.  With time growing short for me, I'm content and at peace with life, and I'm ready for the challenge of living out what's left of it.  That means more disappointments, but it doesn't mean I'm done yet.  I don't know what I'll do, but I'll do something.  And that's the best any of us can do.